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Poster: | stratocaster | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 4:32pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics |
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Poster: | lobster12 | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 5:11pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics |
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 5:56pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics: doesn't add up... |
This post was modified by William Tell on 2008-04-10 00:56:56
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Poster: | sydthecat2 | Date: | Apr 10, 2008 8:48am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics: doesn't add up... |
This post was modified by sydthecat2 on 2008-04-10 15:48:44
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Apr 10, 2008 11:36am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
My experience is that I have a harder time getting folks that are inexperienced to "get it" with post 72 material, but an easier time with earlier era stuff. Not a defn test of the hypothesis, I am sure, but that in part is what I have found. It is no doubt related to my biases, and that of the folks I expose them too, but I have done it with quite a few "kids" (ie, 18-20 yr olds), so it's not just 60s types.
I have not critically evaluated the reviews here to be sure, but much of what I find with folks that rave about post 71 shows is that they are the sorts that say "if you get it, you will love this, period" and thus they really are the uncritical sorts described by others above. I have found them to be relatively numerous.
I was one, having grown up with the 74-82 live DEAD era (all the shows I went to, etc.). Having tried for years to get others to see what I heard, I fell from grace, and came back to the boys focused entirely on the early era, and found it much easier to convince others that they should get it.
Does that make sense?
So, my over the top comment was really more in the spirit of "when did the DEAD really make their mark, do some amazing things, and generally have the ability to impress someone that wasn't a convert alread?" and I think that's the early era.
But, you are right--I am full of crap to suggest that it is absolutely the case that post 71 they didn't do anything of note...
There, I can almost keep up with you!
So good to see you here again, Syd.
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Poster: | sydthecat2 | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 7:13am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
"Funny. I really don't have all that much to say about the Dead anymore. I love them. They're in my DNA. I suppose with a couple of drinks in me I could talk at length about why they hold such an important place in my heart and soul. But I must have bored so many people back in the late 80's with my mania (Hi Jill!) that now I just keep the boys all to myself and members of the "tribe". When I worked at Sam's I never played them in the store for much the same reason. On my last day I broke down and threw on Cumberland Blues and Dark Star. (I mean it was only fair. I played everybody else's stuff for God's sake! I played Travis!!!) So to write about Morning Dew I'll imagine I've had a couple of drinks but keep the mania to a minimum.
I have had transcendental moments watching the band play this song. It was always deeply moving but a couple I saw were jaw-droppers. The elegaic performance of Dew I saw at Deer Creek Amphitheatre in Indiana in 1990 is the one I'll always remember but there were many of them that I have heard on tape or CD that equal or even surpass that one.
The version Jim has chosen is atypical. By 1969 the band had slowed the tempo and created the more familiar "slowburn" arrangement that often ended with a stunning crescendoed solo by Garcia. The version Jim writes about is more garage and very much of its time---1966-7. The tempo is faster. It is suffused with reverb. The band sound as if they've been chewing dexies rather than dropping acid. The whole album has that sound. Pigpen's mixed way upfront farfisa-style organ gives the LP a sound unlike any other Dead record. Odd, since live, he was clearly playing a B3. Maybe it's just the way its mixed. Most of the songs on the album are blues-based covers and many are played insanely fast---ie: Cold Rain and Snow, Jesse Fuller's Beat It On Down the Line. The former song sounds as if someone spiked The Weavers' drinks with something naughty and handed them electric instruments. It's all very uncommercial having more in common with the Nuggets-style bands of the day than cohorts like Jefferson Airplane or It's a Beautiful Day. Only Golden Road sounds like an attempt at a hit single, and the closer Viola Lee Blues is the only song that gives a clue to what the Dead had been doing with form in clubs and ballrooms since 1965. I know I'm writing about more than Morning Dew here but I think this time the context is important. For a number of years this was the only Grateful Dead album I had. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was remotely psychedelic about them.
Morning Dew during this era had a great deal of verve and this version has more in common with Lulu and the other more soulful versions than you might think. (I actually have Lulu's version on the flipside of my To Sir With Love 45. It's bloody good. And Long John Baldry recorded the song on his classic LP It Ain't Easy). The band's next album, Anthem of the Sun would be a more accurate barometer of what the years '67 and '68 had in store for the band in concert.
Here's a Bonnie Dobson tidbit. I read this in either MOJO or UNCUT which did a story on the song and interviewed her around the time Robert Plant released his version. When the Dead came to Toronto in 1967 to play a series of gigs at the O'Keefe Centre they contacted Dobson and invited her to the gig. Either that or she just went on her own knowing that they were playing her tune but I think she was invited. It is appalling how long I thought Tim Rose had written that song. I believe it has been sorted and I hope she has got her financial due. At any rate they both continue to be credited for the writing of the song so Rose is still making change off it. Dobson never saw The Dead again and I don't know if she's ever heard any of the myriad versions released by them in the last forty years.
The version in the Grateful Dead Movie and on the Soundtrack and on Europe '72 would be acceptable versions for the uninitiated to check out. A caveat. All the vocals on Europe '72 with the exception of the Pigpen vocals are studio takes. The band's playing is live and undubbed but the vocals are completely re-done which accounts for it's sweetness and American Beauty-style harmonies.
To hear live versions from the '67 era , www.archive.org has a fair bit from '66 and '67. The less interested and I know they are legion and many are in this Group should just check out Jim's favorite version. Those of you who despise the band, and I know there are many of you too, will have stopped reading long ago. Along with three or four other songs this is also the quintessential Dead for me. I should have bought that Morning Dew t-shirt in the parking lot when I had the chance. Okay, the drinks are wearing off..."
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 1:47pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
Thanks for all the efforts; appreciated.
If we aren't necessarily the best critics, at least we can express ourselves with passion, which is what it's all about...
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Poster: | sydthecat2 | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 6:33am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
Thing is, by not pushing the band I garnered more respect for them than I possibly could have by pushing them. People discovered my other musical tastes over-lapped with theirs. Music that had great cache with them I loved too and I remember the hard-ass guy who was my manager in the department (jazz, blues, worldbeat, r&B, country) that I worked in that record store came to think that there must be something to the Dead because he respected my musical taste and that his dislike of them was simply down to them not being his cup of tea rather than the band sucking. Mission accomplished!
I spent the better part of the 80's trying hard to get people into the Dead. The cafe/pub I managed at university got it's share of their music played on the sound system (we also played everything from Metallica to Miles Davis but all people remember is the Dead). I ran a Dead dance event every Friday for two years there that started around four in the afternoon and often ended around nine or ten at night. But now I feel the Dead are mine. And my tribe's as it were.
There are some people around, friends, who think that the fact I'm into the Dead is funny or quaint or even cool, whatever that is. But I'd rather talk Radiohead or reggae with them. Maybe turn them on to some Wilson Pickett or Shack or our own Sun Parlor Players. Rather talk about the genius of Otis Redding or even Janis or why I like Hunky Dory. The Dead's greatness is a given. And it's there for people to discover. In all its ragged glory.
I'm part of a group on Facebook called 1000 Songs and there the person who started the group chooses a song a day (or tries to) that means something to his life and the rest of us comment on it or bring our experience or knowledge of the song to the table. It's a fun thing for us middle-aged music geeks to do. One day one of those song chosen by him was Morning Dew. I'll send you my part of what was written in a minute. I think you'll see what I mean by restraint and distance when I tell other people about the band. The guy who started the group is a fellow I knew in University who, at the time, really didn't care for the Dead and now he really likes them--in an idiosyncratic way--he prefers their classic studio records. I did that by just not being around for fifteen years so the poor guy could get some air and approach them on his own. Thing is if I'd talked other music than the Dead with him more often I would have discovered that he and I loved a lot of stuff that I thought he was too hip to dig. And he was one of the guys who introduced me to the band Love---a band I now adore and revere.
Peace.
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Poster: | Essayist | Date: | Jun 3, 2008 4:26pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
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Poster: | Diana Hamilton | Date: | Jun 3, 2008 4:46pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
This post was modified by Diana Hamilton on 2008-06-03 23:46:46
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Poster: | Essayist | Date: | Jun 4, 2008 1:46pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
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Poster: | jglynn1.2 | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 10:05am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
For Mr. Arrowslinger - if you dare venture beyond 72 you should add 12-31-83 to "list of post 72 shows to check" - I myself thought I was listening to Pigpen on Big Boss Man for a second (Jerry was channeling).
I will have to remember to give Syds write-up a more thorough go through after work.
Thanks all that is why I love this place - people putting thought provoking stuff into words, stuff I have mucho trouble putting into words.
I seem to be limited to reveiws like: "That was out Effing standing!!!!! Woooooo Hooooo!!!!!"
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 1:49pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
Hang in there; keep it focused in my absence. Or not.
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Poster: | jglynn1.2 | Date: | Apr 11, 2008 2:17pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: Tell can't add to begin with... |
Is this rendition of Around & Around with the explosion of a Johnny B Goode Jam the Cat's PJ's or what. I may have to put together a separate post for this one wild jam . . .the boys out-did themselves though, the Saturday Night Encore sounds almost dull after the 12-16 Around & Around.
Have a good weekend Mr. Tell.
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Poster: | lobster12 | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 5:59pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics: doesn't add up... |
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Poster: | tigerbolt | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 4:45pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics |
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Poster: | Hugh Winnegin | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 5:00pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics |
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Poster: | JamminJerome | Date: | Apr 9, 2008 8:06pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: dead heads as critics |
However, I will have to say that in general, most deadheads are too soft on the boys. I don't understand how some people can give 5 stars to some of the shows here.